Monthly sales of Apple's new iPad device have been rising steadily over the past several months, prompting the electronics maker to adopt a second supplier of 9.7-inch display panels in anticipation of strong fourth quarter sales that could top 6 million.

According to Taiwanese market sources, Samsung electronics will join LG Display as a supplier of the iPads LCD panels next month, with estimated monthly shipments expected to fall in the range of 300,000 to 500,000 per month.

The move comes amid a sharp uptick in iPad sales over the past 60 days that coincided with Apple's international launch of the device, which began ramping last month and broadened availability into Europe and parts of Asia.

The Cupertino-based company is now producing 1.2 million iPads each month, up from 800,000-900,000 units in May, 700,000 units in April, 470,000 units in March, and 300,000 in February.

Researchers for DigiTimes believe iPad sales may further increase twofold to 2.5 million units per month by the time the holidays roll around. By then, Apple will have released iOS 4 for iPad, delivering features such as multi-tasking and a unified mailbox.

It's estimated that Apple pays between $80 and $90 to its suppliers for each of the iPad's 9.7-inch display panels.

The Cupertino-based company is now shipping 1.2 million iPads each month, up from 800,000-900,000 units in May, 700,000 units in April, 470,000 units in March, and 300,000 in February.

Oh, really? Producing maybe, but not shipping as in 'shipping to customers'.

Edit: Ok, people have trouble understanding my subtle high-lighting of the February and March number. My 'Oh, really?' ONLY refers to numbers for February and March. The report literally claimed that Apple was shipping 300 000 iPads in February. But they obviously did not ship them to customers in February as the iPad went only on sale 1 April. Any numbers for February can only refer to production, not sales.

...and they would sell EVEN MORE if they would just put a front facing camera on the iPad. They'd double sales of the predicted double sales....

The problem with doubling sales is twofold.

I had to wait three weeks for my iPad (should get it early next week) so increased demand would have mean longer lines. Striking while the iron is hot is very much apropos here. If there was any longer of a delay in shipping to customers, some may get frustrated and turn away.

The other aspect is that one doesn't come out with the most superb product ever at launch.

Why are there no American companies able to male these displays at a comparable price? Looks like an awful lot of business coming their way...can't believe we can't be competitive. Is it solely the low wage/hour in these other countries? That is going to end in 20 years or so when their living standards begin to approach more Western levels. Who will build electronics THEN? Monkeys? Dogs? Mr. Asimov's robots?

Why are there no American companies able to male these displays at a comparable price? Looks like an awful lot of business coming their way...can't believe we can't be competitive. Is it solely the low wage/hour in these other countries? That is going to end in 20 years or so when their living standards begin to approach more Western levels. Who will build electronics THEN? Monkeys? Dogs? Mr. Asimov's robots?

... because they can make more profit by charging customers the same price but lowering costs through cheap labour and lax environmental and safety standards. That means more profit for the ownership classes. It's not rocket science.

Again, that's why all their trained minions in academia and think tanks are constantly poo-pooing the idea of import tariffs with cries of falling skies and widespread devastation... if that doesn't work, then they tug at a person's more liberal heartstring. "By using import tariffs you are keeping the poor Chinese on the farm and subjected to filth and disease. Trade is lifting them from poverty..." What they fail to add is that we're keeping them impovrished in the cities with no other means of support.

They also try to use this idea of "competition". It's dubious. If you have two gas stations and your competitor raises their gas rates you'd think that you would be better off keeping your lower prices, but the problem is that with interchangeable products it doesn't always work because people choose where they buy items not just on price. Therefore, an increase of pricing by a competitor actually can represent lost profit for yourself. And that's a key point in understanding what REALLY drives inflation. It's not wages or input costs anymore. It's greed. The only reason why prices have any downward pressure is due to lower incomes (adjusted for inflation, a man today makes $800 *less* than his middle class father 30 years ago and the father didn't have to go into substantial debt to get a middle class education either since the father likely didn't need more than high school) and PR to convince the masses to create the illusion that people are actually winners when they're actually on the losing end.

Even if you wanted to be a moral actor in the corporate sphere, you're f**ked. To put it mildly. All it takes is one unscrupulous operator to force the entire industry to operate in a similar manner because if you don't, shareholders bawk, you lose marketshare, and higher prices in this world are a hard sell. Apple has bucked the trend here for the most part, but I also think a lot of Apple's success is due to the fact that it's competition has been so abyssmal.

We got a 3G iPad and my housemate is using it more and more. Last night took it to bed to watch TV. Can't pry it out of hands. I hardly ever get a chance to touch it. Yes even in infantile Rev A state, it's gonna sell sell sell.

Of course they will. But its a pity that they havent already. 512 MB is something everybody can use... especially in safari...

Probably, but there was undoubtedly a reason. Note that the iPhone 4 with the same processor has 512 MB just a few months later, so it probably isn't a cost issue. I'm guessing that it's simply a timing issue - that 512 MB wasn't available in that form factor in time for the April launch.

No problem for me - when they have 512 MB and multicore, I'll give my current one to my daughter and get a new one.

"I'm way over my head when it comes to technical issues like this"Gatorguy 5/31/13

Probably, but there was undoubtedly a reason. Note that the iPhone 4 with the same processor has 512 MB just a few months later, so it probably isn't a cost issue. I'm guessing that it's simply a timing issue - that 512 MB wasn't available in that form factor in time for the April launch.

No problem for me - when they have 512 MB and multicore, I'll give my current one to my daughter and get a new one.

My guess is that it WAS a cost issue... there are far fewer form factor restrictions on the iPad form than the iPhone form. My guess is that next year's revision will get a Gig of RAM and all the new features except a 300dpi screen. A 9" 300+dpi screen would just be too expensive.

Personally, I'm looking forward to iOS4 on the iPad... it'll be like getting a whole new device mid-year.

My guess is that it WAS a cost issue... there are far fewer form factor restrictions on the iPad form than the iPhone form. My guess is that next year's revision will get a Gig of RAM and all the new features except a 300dpi screen. A 9" 300+dpi screen would just be too expensive.

Personally, I'm looking forward to iOS4 on the iPad... it'll be like getting a whole new device mid-year.

To be fair, an iPad is used a bit further away than an iPhone screen so the DPI doesn't have to be as high to still be a "retina display". I expect something around 250dpi should suffice.

I don't expect the next iPad to have a 250dpi display though, but maybe something around 200dpi (up from 130dpi now) (1600x1200 maybe). I also expect it to have a dual core ARM Cortex A9 CPU and even better graphics (will be needed for the higher resolution). It'll probably come with 512MB of RAM though!

Why are there no American companies able to male these displays at a comparable price? Looks like an awful lot of business coming their way...can't believe we can't be competitive. Is it solely the low wage/hour in these other countries? That is going to end in 20 years or so when their living standards begin to approach more Western levels. Who will build electronics THEN? Monkeys? Dogs? Mr. Asimov's robots?

What do you mean? South Korea has a standard of living close to the USA. I expect that we don't build these things here because we don't have the right workforce for it. Our strengths are in other areas.

Why are there no American companies able to male these displays at a comparable price? Looks like an awful lot of business coming their way...can't believe we can't be competitive. Is it solely the low wage/hour in these other countries? That is going to end in 20 years or so when their living standards begin to approach more Western levels. Who will build electronics THEN? Monkeys? Dogs? Mr. Asimov's robots?

I've often wondered what economists think about your question. Eventually we will run out of cheap labor forces. Japan was the source after WW II. Now it's China for electronics anyway. Look at your clothing. I see stuff from all over the third world, like Vietnam, Honduras, Bangladesh, etc. Nothing from the middle east though, like Iraq, Iran, Jordan, etc. Maybe when the oil wells run dry they will be the next source. I don't know but it would seem that Asimov's humanoid robots might be down the road a ways. Money needs to move around in a successful economy and robots don't need money.

If you have two gas stations and your competitor raises their gas rates you'd think that you would be better off keeping your lower prices, but the problem is that with interchangeable products it doesn't always work because people choose where they buy items not just on price.

You contradict yourself. If products are 'interchangeable', meaning one just works exactly as well as the other, then buyers will just go with the lower priced one. If two competing products sell at different prices, then the inescapable inference is that they are NOT interchangeable: someone is willing to pay more for one over the other. That means his choice is based on more than just price.

Or did you really mean 'non-interchangeable' when you wrote 'interchangeale'?

Also, it's extremely rare for a price increase in one product causes a competing product to lose sales.

I thought my prediction of 10 million sold in calendar year 2010 was aggressive (and all my friends laughed at me for it), but I never thought that they may hit it before the holiday buying season even begins!

"Just wait until the Android tablets hit the stores in... err, well, whenever they do" , said the troll in the most offended tone of voice he could muster. "Then the iPad will die just like the iPhone did...err, I mean, will."

You contradict yourself. If products are 'interchangeable', meaning one just works exactly as well as the other, then buyers will just go with the lower priced one. If two competing products sell at different prices, then the inescapable inference is that they are NOT interchangeable: someone is willing to pay more for one over the other. That means his choice is based on more than just price.

I think his argument was precisely that choices are based on factors other than price, not because the items are not interchangeable, but for a whole raft of other reasons. One of the problems with most economic theory is that it takes as one of its premises that people behave rationally and make economic choices based on economic factors. IRL, nothing could actually be further from the truth.

I've often wondered what economists think about your question. Eventually we will run out of cheap labor forces. Japan was the source after WW II. Now it's China for electronics anyway. Look at your clothing. I see stuff from all over the third world, like Vietnam, Honduras, Bangladesh, etc. Nothing from the middle east though, like Iraq, Iran, Jordan, etc. Maybe when the oil wells run dry they will be the next source. I don't know but it would seem that Asimov's humanoid robots might be down the road a ways. Money needs to move around in a successful economy and robots don't need money.

If things track cyclically (like they inevitably do) China will have replaced the US as a consuming nation and the US can gracefully decline to the point where they will start shipping all the cheap labor jobs back here. We can then get those hicks off the farms in the "fly-over zone" and into factories and out of poverty. All it will take is a major collapse of the US economy - we've dodged the bullet a couple of times, but it is inevitable (and I'm an optimist!). So just wait a few decades or so with the large majority of our workforce retiring at increasing rates, huge demand placed on Social Security, all it will take is the right President and the right Congress to crash the economy beyond rescue. Unfortunately it will hit most other economies as well, unless China is able to insulate itself.

In the meantime, the iPad seems to be well-enough equiped and configured to satisfy a whole-lotta consumers. So 512MB, front-facing cam and so on are geek targets. When Apple finally decides they have a good reason to do those - they will. So for now, "buy or buy not - there is no maybe buy."

"Features matter not. Look at iPhone. Judge iPhone by features, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For its ally is the App Store, and a powerful ally it is. Apple creates it, makes it grow. Its devs surround us and bind us. Luminous fun are apps, not this crude hardware. You must feel the App Store around you; here, between you, me, the iPad, the iPod Touch, everywhere, yes. Even between the wifi and the 3G."

Yeah, well, all they are doing is extrapolating current numbers, and given that tablet numbers weren't high when they probably grabbed them, it's not surprising that they are way off reality. I also think their trending of laptops/desktops is all wrong and that they are actually more likely to swap market shares. Netbooks will probably crash and burn though: a lot of people will be more than adequately served by tablet computers, both iPad and others and their only attraction will be the illusion of a "full" computer at minimal cost.

It's funny how yet another iPad success article got hijacked and transposed into a spec critique and why it will not be successful. From the haters perspective, it's a good strategy. Change the subject.

Apple has no competition. Every commercial product which competes directly with an Apple product gives the distinct impression that, Where it is original, it is not good, and where it is good, it...

What do you mean? South Korea has a standard of living close to the USA. I expect that we don't build these things here because we don't have the right workforce for it. Our strengths are in other areas.

Having lived in both countries, South Korea does not have a standard of living close to the USA. They live in small densely populated tower blocks, drive crappy cars and get very little time away from work to spend with their family.

However, they are inefficient. Working in the factories I have, there are far more people working in a Korean factory than the US equivalent - US productivity is way higher, which negates the fact that Korean wages are lower.

The thing that really makes the difference though, is that the Korean government values and offers incentives to build job creating manufacturing sites. The US government (along with my home government in the UK) values the financial and service sectors, and have given little help and support to manufacturing for years.

I'm no expert in these matters, but as I look back over the past couple of hundred years, the rise and fall of countries seems to be connected to how much they allow engineers to be in charge. The UK became a world power through the industrial revolution, mostly because engineers were allowed to take on huge challenges, pretty much regardless of cost. Around the inter-war period, accountants (who tend to be short-termist) were put in charge and the UK started it's long and slippery slide. The same now seems to be true. From the 40's onwards, America engineered it's way to the top, but now accountants run the show and America is sliding. China conversely is putting huge resources into engineering.........